The Magic Man
by custardpringle
Summary: John gets some good advice . . . and a shove in the right direction. McKaySheppard slash. [COMPLETE]
1. Part 1

TITLE: The Magic Man

AUTHOR: custardpringle

BETA: machingmonkey

RATING: PG-13

CATEGORIES: Romance, angst, supernatural

SPOILERS: Brief mention of "The Storm" and "The Eye"

PAIRING: John/Rodney, of course

SUMMARY: John gets some good advice . . . and a shove in the right direction.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Look! I'm alive! (Despite the educational system's considerable efforts to the contrary . . .)

I own nothing except my _Essential Blue Oyster Cult_ CD. (The plot bunny and the title come from their song "Shooting Shark.") Please don't sue me.

* * *

John gaped at Elizabeth in shock, sure he hadn't heard right. "You want me to replace Bates?"

"That's what I said." She folded her hands calmly on the desk in front of her. "The Nariel have made it quite clear that they will not continue negotiations unless one of our leaders is present. According to Dr. Beckett, Bates is too concussed to go back. Which leaves you."

"Elizabeth, the last time you sent me to negotiate for food with a bunch of so-called peaceful farmers, they invaded Atlantis and nearly got us all blown to hell." John cocked his head. "Can't we send Ford and have him pretend to be me, or something? People seem to like him better."

The corners of Elizabeth's mouth twitched upwards, but she shook her head. "You probably won't have to actually negotiate—otherwise, I'd go myself. I gather that it's more of a ceremonial gesture to indicate our approval of whatever agreement our negotiators make. And, from what I hear, they've been doing quite well."

"Until Bates had his unfortunate accident with a tree root," John finished. "So, essentially, I get to sacrifice part of my downtime because he's a klutz, right?"

She smiled for real this time. "I'll give you—and the rest of your team—an extra day off to make up for it. Just please go. We really need this food."

John nodded slowly—diplomacy really wasn't his thing, but he knew just as well as she did how important this was. "Fine, I'll go. I'll even try to stay out of trouble this time."

Elizabeth sighed. "I suspect that's the best I can ask of you, isn't it?"

* * *

An hour later, John was on Narien. Nice place, as planets went. Plenty of trees, something Bates had found out the hard way. And lots and lots of nice golden crops, of course; the Nariel lived in a cluster of thatched huts at the edge of a huge expanse of farmland, right on the border between field and forest.

The people were nice, too; apparently their crops had done too well this year, a rare thing, and they'd been looking for a way to dispose of the excess other than letting it sit around and rot. Messengers had been dispatched to other villages, but the closest of these was, well, not all that close. Once they'd gotten over their shock at seeing people come through their Stargate, the Nariel had been ecstatic to find people who wanted their surplus crop. Nonetheless, they were tough bargainers, and by the time John got there they'd cheerfully accepted a goodly quantity of medical supplies in payment for allowing Atlantis to take the stuff off their hands.

John arrived in the late afternoon, Nariel time, and as far as he could tell the negotiations were more or less over. All he had to do was sit there and smile dutifully and listen to Bates' team dickering over relatively minor details. Once that had been dealt with, the Nariel announced that the exchange itself would be made first thing tomorrow morning; the crops they'd promised would have to be taken from storage and packed up for transport, and it was too late in the day by now to accomplish all of that before sundown.

In the meantime, there was the requisite celebratory feast, which was also not too bad a time. John had never gotten on too well with Bates' team—all three of them were at least as dour as their CO—but he managed to tolerate them for the evening. The local food, which was some of the best he'd ever eaten and a more-than-welcome change from military rations, helped a lot. Even once the actual meal had ended, they ended up sitting around for a long time, just socializing. John could've even sworn he saw Bates' second smile once, but he figured he'd imagined it.

This had gone on for about an hour when John noticed the old man for the first time. He was sitting in a far corner, a little away from everyone else, and staring intently at John. John looked straight back at him, and the old man's gaze shifted away almost immediately. Still, it made John uncomfortable, and he quietly excused himself and left. People had been gradually trickling away for some time, and no one seemed to mind his departure.

Each of the visitors had been provided with his own tent and a reasonably comfortable mattress, and John was contentedly settling down for the night when the flap of his tent was jerked open. A face appeared in the opening—a small Nariel girl, about six or seven years old, whom John had never seen before. She looked like she was terrified out of her wits. "The Knower—" she stammered, and gulped, starting over. "The Knower sent me to say he wishes to speak to you."

John walked over and crouched down to look into her face. "Did he say why?" he asked gently, wondering who the Knower might be. Someone important, obviously, but none of the Nariel had mentioned him in conversation before.

"No." The girl glanced back over her shoulder as if afraid the Knower would be creeping up behind her. "He said only that I was to bring you to him as soon as possible."

John stood up and ducked through the opening to join her outside. "Is he really that scary?" he asked, following the girl as she headed towards the woods.

The girl looked up at him and nodded. Her face was solemn. "He is the Knower," she said, as if that would explain everything. "He can do and see things no one else can"

"All right." They'd entered the woods now, and John decided he'd better focus on watching out for tree roots so as not to end up like Bates. He'd do whatever he had to—within reason—to get this trade to succeed. If that included sucking up to the local shaman, then that was what he'd do, even though he wasn't exactly sure he believed in any of it. Enough food was riding on this to feed the entire population of Atlantis for a month.

The Knower's hut was set by itself, well into the woods, but otherwise it seemed exactly like the others in the village. The girl knocked on the door twice, timidly, and then fled, leaving John alone before he even had a chance to thank her. After he'd waited almost a minute, the door swung open, seemingly of its own accord. John stared at it for a second, and then walked inside. The door closed silently behind him.

The hut looked pretty much normal on the inside, too. There were no bleached skulls hanging from the ceiling, no strange smells, and no bubbling cauldrons—just a very old-looking man sitting on a stool in the middle of the room, hunched over the small fire. An enormous wooden trunk stood against the wall next to him, but that was the only thing even remotely out of place.

"I remember you," John said suddenly. "You were the one who was watching me at the feast tonight."

The Knower glanced up as if only noticing for the first time that he wasn't alone. "John Sheppard." His voice was surprisingly clear, not shrill and cracked like John would've expected from someone anywhere near as old as this man looked. He gestured slightly towards another stool which sat unoccupied in a corner. "Sit."

John didn't move for a moment. "How do you know my name?"

The old man shrugged. "How could I not know it? I am the Knower, am I not?"

Still skeptical—come to think of it, the Knower could have heard his name just about anywhere—but interested despite himself, John picked up the stool and plopped it down by the fire, seating himself so that he faced the other man through the flames. "That's it? You just . . . know things?"

"If you wish to simplify it that far, then yes."

John nodded slowly, absorbing the information. "Then I'm guessing there's something more. You didn't have me brought here just because you know my name."

The Knower stared into the fire for several seconds. "To begin with," he said at last, "I see another man. He is in your thoughts almost constantly, almost as easy for me to find as your own name."

"Another man." John was startled to find that his voice had gone slightly hoarse. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Really."

A tiny smile flickered across the old man's face; he hadn't been fooled for an instant, of course. "His name is Rodney McKay."

"Yes. Yes, it is." John's throat tightened a little more—the slightest thought of Rodney seemed to do that to him lately—but anger began to well up inside him as well. Whatever weird powers this Knower might possess, he had no right to be worrying about any of this. "And what exactly makes _my_ sexual frustrations _your_ concern?"

"Is that all it is?" The Knower met John's gaze calmly through the flames. "Just a sexual frustration?"

John searched for a reply to that, but he couldn't find one without saying something he _really_ didn't want to admit aloud. Not even to this man, who obviously knew it in any case.

The old man nodded slightly. "As I thought."

"Look." John was rapidly losing patience. "Is there something you wanted to tell me that I don't already know?"

"There is. When I look at you—" For the first time, the old man seemed unsure of himself, even nervous, but he spoke again after only a few seconds' pause. "I can see his death."

"Rodney's death?" John swallowed hard. "I don't understand . . ."

"I will show you." The Knower stood up, indicating to John to do the same—they were, it turned out, almost exactly the same height—and extended a hand.

John glanced warily at it and then slowly raised one of his own. Their fingertips touched.

_Without warning, the Knower was gone. John wasn't alone, though, because Ford and Teyla were there, all three of them fully geared up. They were standing inside a small domed chamber with a large control panel on one wall. Other than them, there was no one else in the room._

_Except that there should've been. He was pretty certain that they'd left Rodney in this room and told him in no uncertain terms to stay there._

_Something white was glinting on a nearby shelf, and Ford walked over and picked up the scrap of paper that lay there. _"Went into the next room,"_ he read. "There's no signature, but it's definitely his handwriting."_

_There was a hallway leading out of the other side of the room. John crossed to it; he could glimpse more machinery in the room at the other end. "Rodney?" he called out, receiving only silence in return. He was about to step through the doorway when something a few yards in caught his eye: a pile of grayish dust maybe a foot high. It looked a little—a lot, actually—like ashes. Like something had been very thoroughly combusted._

_A large cannonball plummeted into John's gut. He grabbed the first thing that came to hand—a Power Bar—and dropped it just inside the corridor. Nothing happened for a second or two, and then the whole space was filled with a blinding flash of light. When it faded, the package was gone, replaced by a much smaller mound of ash._

_"Oh, crap." John's knees buckled, and he latched on to the wall for support. "Crap. Oh God, no . . ."_

_"What?" Teyla asked from directly behind him._

_"Fucking Ancients and their fucking security systems," John said weakly, and pointed at the small heap of dust at his feet. "That used to be a Power Bar. And that," he continued, raising his arm to point at the larger pile, "used to be—"_

_He couldn't even finish the sentence; he ran outside and threw up violently while Teyla and Ford, both of whom also looked pretty green, radioed back to Elizabeth. He couldn't even go back inside; he just leaned against an outer wall and trembled, his face buried in his hands, because he'd lost Rodney for good now. Rodney was dead, without even a corpse to show for it, and—although he wasn't quite sure how or why—it was his fault._

_And he'd never had a chance to kiss him, not even once._

The Knower withdrew his hand and sat back down again.

Gasping for breath, John stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his stool before he managed to properly reseat himself. It took a while before he could speak again, and then it came out a rough whisper. "What happened to him?"

"I cannot tell you exactly," the old man said. "I can only see his future where it crosses yours. But I know this: what I showed you just now happened because you tried too hard not to care for him. You were so intent on hiding your feelings that you left him to fend for himself when you should not have."

John found a thread of hope in that sentence and clung to it. "So, this . . . vision . . . whatever the hell it is. It's not necessarily going to come true?"

"There is a chance, yes," the Knower admitted gravely. "But only if you confess your feelings to him. Otherwise—" He shook his head sadly.

* * *

When John woke up the next morning, he lay perfectly still for several minutes, staring up at the roof of his tent. He didn't _want_ to think about what the Knower had shown him last night, didn't _want _to think about that pile of ash sitting on the ground Nor did he want to imagine what would happen if he ever admitted what he felt for a man who'd never even looked twice at him. They had a decent friendship going, at least, and John knew he'd lose even that if he confessed his real intentions.

Nonetheless, if the Knower was right, it seemed he was going to have to make that choice—and it wasn't even much of a choice, really.

Eventually he got up, dressed, and left the tent in search of breakfast. Along the way, he ran into Bren, a man he remembered meeting at yesterday's negotiations. John asked a question on a whim, pretending simple curiosity.

"The Knower?" Bren looked startled for a second, and then laughed. "He can certainly do something, although no one can say what. He tells fortunes, mostly, and is right surprisingly often. But he's been wrong almost as many times. The younger children fear him, it is true, but they learn otherwise soon enough. Why do you ask? Has he been telling yours?"

"Yeah, he did, actually. Nothing important, though," John lied. "I'm more interested right now in where we can get some food."

It was all a lot less credible in the light of day, anyhow. For all he knew, the Knower was just a crackpot who happened to be an extraordinarily good guesser. Anyone could've told him John's name, of course, and it wasn't all that hard to believe he'd heard something about Rodney as well in the few days Bates and his team had already been here. As for the rest—the so-called vision, and the old man knowing John's feelings for Rodney—hypnosis, probably, and for all he knew there could've been something funky in the food to boot.

As Bren led him off, John allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief. He saw no reason to make an ass out of himself based solely on the word of an old man who probably had no psychic powers at all.

He was going to keep his feelings safely inside himself, where they belonged. Letting them out would only hurt both himself and Rodney.

* * *

To be continued, of course. What do you take me for? 


	2. Part 2

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Wow, lots of happy FB on this fic. Thanks.

I'm dreadfully sorry it's taken me so long to post this. It only takes me a few hours to write a two-thousand-word chapter—it's finding those few hours that's the problem, because lately I've been spending most of my free time asleep. shakes fist at schoolwork I was planning to finish this entire fic over Thanksgiving break, in fact. And look how that worked out.

Anyway: I realize that a lot of people have probably forgotten what this fic was about—I almost did, and I'm the one writing it. So I'm reposting part 1 for your benefit.

I will do my level best to get part 3 done as soon as possible. We'll see.

* * *

It was maybe two months later that John's intercom went off at somewhere around three in the morning. Mumbling resentfully—he'd been having a _very_ nice dream about Rodney—he rolled over and slapped it. "Whaddaya want?"

"Major!" Rodney sounded not only wide awake but—if such a thing were possible—even more caffeinated than usual. "Could you come down to my lab, please? It's quite urgent."

"Are you nuts?" John grumbled, still half asleep. "McKay, if this were anyone but you—" He slapped a hand across his mouth. _Gotta wake up_, he told himself. _Can't make slips like that. Can't play favorites_. "You sure it can't wait?"

"Please, Major." His voice was slightly distorted by the intercom system, but Rodney did sound impatient. "I really think you'll want to hear about this as soon as possible."

"Fine, I'll be right there. And you'd better not be wasting my time." John hit the button again and forced himself out of bed, buoyed by the thought of seeing Rodney in a few minutes. Rodney and his inescapably infectious enthusiasm. It was a little childish, he knew.

But it was also the only thing keeping him from staying in bed and going right back to sleep.

-

Ten minutes, a t-shirt, and a pair of jeans later, John made it into the lab. "All right, McKay. This had better be pretty damn important."

"Believe me, it is." Rodney waved John around behind the desk and began entering rapid commands into his laptop. Within seconds, a file popped up: pages upon pages of text and equations, accompanied by dozens of diagrams John couldn't understand. The file ended with a picture of what looked like a complex of huge, white-domed buildings.

John frowned at the screen and leaned forward, resisting the sudden ridiculous urge to rest his chin on the top of Rodney's head. "What's this?"

"A totally unstoppable, incredibly powerful weapon." Rodney looked up at him and grinned.

John straightened up. "That doesn't help," he said impatiently. "What kind of a weapon are we talking about here?"

"Well . . ." Rodney paused—maybe to gather his thoughts, more likely just for dramatic effect. "Simply put, this is a device which can project bursts of zero-point energy to a specified location. Extremely powerful bursts of energy, in fact."

There was silence for a few seconds while John thought this over. "Like the Genesis Machine?" he asked at last.

"Very similar, yes." Rodney's eyebrows went up. "I wouldn't have thought you'd be into Hogan."

John shrugged. "Guess we're both full of surprises today. Now what else can you tell me about this thing?"

Rodney turned back to his computer and scanned through the file. "The Ancients were still working on this technology when they abandoned Atlantis. My impression from reading this is that they could never get the device to work properly, but my team and I can go over these notes. There's always the chance we might be able to figure out what went wrong, although it's more likely there was some kind of glitch in the construction."

"I _knew_ it," John groaned. "You want to go check this place out in person."

"Yes, Major, I do," Rodney agreed patiently. "How else am I going to be able to work on this?"

John raised his hands. "Whoa, McKay, slow down. I agree, this could be a fantastic thing _if_ it's still around and _if_ we can get it working. But this isn't the kind of technology the Ancients would just leave lying around. For all we know, they blew the whole thing up when they left. At the very least, they must've had some kind of security systems in place so Wraith couldn't wander in and steal the technology." Security systems . . . the phrase jogged something in his head, but John couldn't figure out what, so he shoved the feeling to the back of his head and ignored it.

"Well, of _course_," Rodney said, all confidence. "Remember who you're talking to here. I promise you, I will proceed with all due caution and then some."

"Should've expected that . . ." John nodded slowly. "Okay, we'll go see Elizabeth. In the morning," he added hastily. "Right now, I'm going back to bed. And so are you."

As expected, Rodney immediately began to protest. "But—"

"I don't wanna hear it, McKay," John cut in tiredly. "You've been working all night, and I expect you to quit right now."

"Or else?" Rodney challenged.

"Or else I go talk to Beckett and get him to tell Elizabeth you're not healthy enough to work on this kind of project."

John turned and left the lab, feeling all too clearly the prickle of Rodney staring after him. He'd been a little abrupt, he knew, but it had been for Rodney's own good. That was what mattered—

—so long as no one noticed anything unusual about it.

-

John had heard that, after maybe a dozen missions, General O'Neill (then Colonel, of course) had begun complaining about the frequency of trees on alien planets. The idea had sounded inane at first, but he was beginning to sympathize. This was a whole other galaxy, after all. If he'd wanted to see trees, grass, and blue skies, he might as well have taken his P-90 to Nebraska and threatened cows with it. He'd take cows over Wraith any day.

Unless you believed the _X-Files_ movie, however, Nebraska was also severely lacking in enormous Ancient weapons silos, which this planet apparently was not.

Of course, Nebraska didn't have Rodney either, and this planet did at the moment. Which left Nebraska at a distinct disadvantage as far as John was concerned.

Focus. He had to focus. On something other than watching Rodney's ass, anyway.

Dear God, those buildings were _huge_. John didn't have a very good grasp of how this weapon was actually supposed to work—that was Rodney's job, after all—but apparently it took up a whole lot of space. As they got closer, he could see that the complex was easily half as big as the city of Atlantis. "At the very least," he mused aloud, "there's got to be a ZPM in there somewhere."

"That's what I'm hoping for," Rodney agreed.

Ford considered this. "Kinda like a consolation prize?"

"Watch it, Lieutenant." John reached over and smacked his shoulder. "You're veering dangerously close to naming things."

Teyla cocked her head inquisitively. "Since when is Lieutenant Ford prohibited from naming things?"

"Since he wanted to call the 'jumpers 'gateships.'"

"But 'gateship'" would indeed be a better name for them," Teyla objected.

"Shush, you." John pointed a threatening finger at her. "Rodney, why are we heading for the most insignificant-looking building?"

" Larger buildings tend to be primarily for equipment. I'm guessing that the central control room is in here." Rodney shook his head in frustration. "But this door won't open. Which lends credence to my theory, but is otherwise unhelpful."

"Let me try." John moved forward and pressed his palm to what looked like a scanner mounted on the wall. After a moment, the door hissed open. He wiggled his fingers gleefully. "The hands that made me a legend."

"You can quit gloating," Rodney told him sourly. "The Ancients were probably worried about people acquiring the gene through artificial means like the therapy Carson used on me. It's not terribly surprising that they'd set their security systems to exclude such people."

"Fine, burst my bubble. See if I care." John advanced cautiously through the doorway, P-90 at the ready; you never knew what the hell the Ancients had left in their labs to greet their unsuspecting descendants. But this one, at least, seemed fairly innocuous. It was just a small domed chamber with an enormous control panel mounted at the far end. It looked inexplicably familiar. "Huh," he said, lowering the gun. "That's weird."

Rodney, already engaged in examining the controls, didn't even look up. "What's weird?"

"Just that this room looks really familiar. Probably just _déja vu_."

Ford shrugged. "Well, it's not like we've been here before. This just looks exactly like every other Ancient lab we've ever been in."

"Maybe to _you_—" Rodney began.

John cut him off. "So am I the only one who gets a really bad feeling from this place?"

"I do not." Teyla glanced around. "We appear to be the only ones present, Major. I do not see what could pose a threat."

"I don't care." John shook his head decisively. "I don't think we looked around thoroughly enough. For all we know, there could be a shipful of Wraith sniffing around the other side of the complex. We oughta go back out and look around some more before we camp out in here for the day. Fair enough?"

Teyla and Ford nodded, but Rodney was developing an all-too-familiar mulish expression.

John sighed. "McKay, I don't want to leave you here by yourself. You have a tendency to get into trouble. Frequently trouble of your own making."

"I'll be careful. I _can_ look after myself, believe it or not." Rodney patted his Glock in what was undoubtedly meant to be a reassuring manner, although John wasn't sure which of them he was trying to reassure.

John shook his head. "It's not a very good idea." In fact, this place was making him jumpier with every passing second, and he was torn between the equally strong instincts to stay and look after Rodney himself and to get the hell out.

Not that he was going to admit to either of those things, of course.

"If you insist," John agreed at last, not daring to make too much out of the issue. "Even though I'm probably going to regret this later on. Just radio if anything happens."

-

Not only were the domes huge, there were an unbelievable number of them—far too many to be housing a single machine, in John's estimation. He wondered what else the Ancients had been working on here. And he still felt like he'd walked straight into the _X-Files _movie.

Something more than that was nagging at him, though. He wasn't as twitchy as he'd been in the control room—being in there had practically made him nauseous, although that was another thing he'd never admit aloud. It wasn't nearly as bad out here, but there was still _something_.

John stopped walking and turned around to look back at the small dome where they'd left Rodney.

"Something wrong, sir?" Ford asked from behind him.

John opened his mouth to say no. Then he glanced back at the dome again—and, all of a sudden, he realized why this all looked familiar.

_He was leaning against that patch of wall, shaking uncontrollably, trying and failing to stop his almost continuous dry-heaves. He couldn't stop, he couldn't stop thinking about—_

_Rodney._

_No, not Rodney. Not any more._

_A pile of gray ashes._

_And then, still terrified, he'd looked through the fire and asked, how did this happen? how can I save him?_

_And the Knower had answered, you cannot. not if you continue to hide yourself from him. this will come about because you have hidden too well._

_The Knower . . ._

"Oh, crap," John said instead. "Wait here," he added quickly, and sprinted back the way they'd come.

He burst through the entryway just as Rodney was heading for the doorway on the other side of the room. Without pausing to think, John launched himself toward the other man, making what was all but a flying leap and yanking him back right out of the entrance to the corridor.

There was dead silence for maybe fifteen seconds as both men's awareness caught up with what had just happened.

"Major," Rodney said at last, "what's going on?"

John took a moment to calm himself down. He discovered that he was still holding on to Rodney—was, in fact, gripping him firmly by both shoulders, so that they only stood a few inches apart. Rodney looked extremely confused, which was a rare enough thing for him that John suddenly found it unbearably sexy.

"Major?"

John slid his hands up to cup Rodney's face and kissed him thoroughly.

It took him another few seconds to realize that Rodney wasn't kissing back. As a matter of fact, Rodney seemed to be making a point of being as unresponsive as possible.

John let go and stepped back.

"I repeat," Rodney said acidly, "what the hell is going on?"

By way of response, John yanked out the first thing that came to hand, which turned out (of course) to be a Power Bar, and tossed it into the corridor. There was a bright flash of light, and when it faded all that was left (of course) was a small heap of ash. "Security systems, remember?" It was difficult for him to speak; his throat was closing up.

Rodney nodded, taking this in. He crossed the room, picked up his note from the shelf, and deliberately crushed it into a very small ball. "You could have just said it was dangerous."

John was saved from answering this by the crackle of his radio. _"Major?"_ Teyla asked. _"Are you all right?"_ She sounded quite worried. _How nice_, John thought absently. _How nice of everyone to care so bloody much about me._

"I'm fine," he lied through his teeth. "Absolutely fine."

* * *

To be continued. Of course. 


	3. Part 3

I'm done. Finally. Gasp.

* * *

The outing ended somehow, they went back to Atlantis at some point, and there was a debriefing during which Rodney made some kind of recommendation, probably along the lines of "deserves further investigation." More than that, John simply couldn't absorb. He went through the rest of the day in a fog, trying to figure out exactly how badly he'd screwed up and whether he could fix it.

He'd had to follow Rodney around closely for the rest of the afternoon to avoid triggering any more booby traps, and it had been intensely uncomfortable. Neither man would speak to, or even look at, the other unless it was absolutely necessary. Even in the debriefing, Rodney had refused to look at John for even a second. John wondered whether Elizabeth had noticed anything.

John couldn't figure out why Rodney was so angry. He would've expected him to be upset, certainly. Shocked. Maybe offended. But Rodney was absolutely furious—John could tell. But he couldn't understand why. It was just another thing bothering him on top of the whole mess.

He didn't want to think about _any_ of it any more.

So he went and told Carson he'd been having nightmares, politely declined to set up an appointment with Heightmeyer ("I'm fine, doc, really, just sick of dreaming about Wraith all the time"), and finally managed to get a couple of sleeping pills.

Back in his quarters, John gulped down the pills, tumbled into bed, and dreamt.

* * *

He was sitting on an uncomfortably small stool, in front of a painfully inadequate fire. Its flickering light was only just sufficient for him to make out the enormous, heavy trunk against the opposite wall of the hut.

John looked straight through the flames. To his utter lack of surprise, the Knower was sitting directly opposite him, as unperturbed as ever.

It pissed John off no end, seeing that expression on someone who'd just screwed over his love life.

"You lied to me," he snapped. "You said that if I told Rodney that I—how I felt—everything would be all right . . ." He trailed off in confusion, realizing how childish he sounded.

"I told you it would save his life," the Knower said placidly. "I never assured you that he would reciprocate."

John glared at him. "Why'd you bother, anyway?" he demanded. "Where the hell do you get off, messing around with my love life? If you'd just left me alone—"

There was an edge to the Knower's voice now. "If I had left you alone, the man you love would be dead now, and you would be dreaming far worse dreams than this. Believe me. I dreamt them myself for years."

Nothing could be said to this, so John said nothing, waiting for the old man to continue.

"I began having strange dreams when I was seventeen," the Knower said at last, his voice distant. "Little flickers, at first. I would look at someone and catch a brief glimpse of them other than what they were doing at the time. But there was a girl in the village, about my age—I had vivid nightmares about her. The same dream every night: I was watching her in the woods, gathering firewood, and then a huge beast leapt from between the trees and snatched her. I woke each time with her dying screams echoing in my head. I could tell no one of these visions; if I had, they would surely have thought me mad—I myself doubted my sanity. The last thing I wanted was to be so embarrassed. Especially not in front of the girl."

John nodded in understanding, beginning to see where the story was going. "So . . ." he asked reluctantly, "what happened?"

"I had nightmares every night for a week," the Knower said wearily. "The day after the last one, she went to look for firewood and never came back. After two days, I went to the Elders and told them what I knew and how I knew it. Some believed me, some did not, but no one ever looked at me the same way again. A search party was sent out, of course, and they found the beast and killed it, but her body was never recovered."

John stared uncomfortably at the ground between his feet, once again with no idea what to say.

"Do you see now?" the Knower asked gently. "Do you see why I could not let you make the same mistake that I had? I thought, at the very least, I needed to explain that to you."

"Yeah, I get it." John bit his lip, looking back up. "And it's not like I'm not incredibly glad that Rodney's alive." He snorted softly. "But at this rate, I'm not sure he's ever going to speak to me again."

The Knower met his eyes through the fire. "I am sorry."

"Wait a second . . ." John stared at him. "You _know!_ You can see my future, can't you? So just tell me how this is going to work out!"

But the hut was already growing hazy around him, fading as he sank more deeply into sleep.

The last thing he saw was the Knower watching through the fire, incongruously wearing a small smile.

* * *

Stackhouse got sent out to negotiate again the next day, and called back a couple of hours later that he'd included repairs in the deal and could Rodney please come and fix the broken computers (a fairly significant item) with which his new friends had been suffering for some time. This took the better part of a week. While John missed Rodney terribly—hell, he missed the guy every time he left the room, let alone the planet—he was glad not to have to deal with him for a few days. He needed to think things through.

A lot of people noticed that John was keeping to himself more than usual. These people generally made concerned inquiries which were always put down politely but firmly. He knew his friends were puzzled and worried, but he also knew they couldn't see anything genuinely wrong with him. After a day or two, most people just decided to leave him alone until whatever it was blew over, but a few determined worriers kept knocking at his door. Eventually, as much to distract himself as anything else, John took out a map of Atlantis, marked all the balconies, and calculated which of them was physically furthest from the settled area of the city. He spent most of his time there after that.

Five days of repairing alien technology, and Stackhouse's team came home. John allowed himself to watch them come through the gate, just to make sure Rodney looked okay. Then, realizing he still didn't know what to do, he slipped out of the control room and fled to his balcony.

It was a ridiculously sunny day out, and the glare off the water hurt John's eyes, so he sat down with his back against the wall and stretched his legs out in front of him.

There was no way he was going to get out of this, really; it had to be worked out eventually. He and Rodney were teammates—they had to work together smoothly, and any kind of unresolved sexual tension—especially one-sided—was going to interfere with that.

That was the practical view, anyway, and screw the frat regs.

Then there was the personal view, which led to the same conclusion, even if it made a lot less sense: John wanted Rodney's ass. No, scratch that, he wanted Rodney. Period. And John wasn't going to stop wanting him any time soon, so he really had to do something about it, even though he'd already tried and managed only to piss Rodney off.

It occurred to John that knowing what he wanted really wasn't the problem here—it was knowing how to get what he wanted, and, sadly, just wanting Rodney badly enough wasn't going to get him anywhere.

But, when it came down to it, he didn't know what to do.

"Goddammit," John muttered, pulling his legs up. He crossed his arms atop his knees and rested his forehead on them.

And he didn't move for a long time, not even when he heard someone come through the door. He just sat there and waited for whoever it was to figure out that he wanted to be left alone.

Whoever it was didn't go away, though, just stood there for a couple of minutes and fidgeted before speaking up uncertainly. "Major?" A moment's hesitation. "John? I thought you'd be here . . ."

It was Rodney. And—despite what he'd just said—it didn't sound like he was going away.

Leave it to Rodney to know how he'd pick a hiding place.

Crap.

John tensed despite himself, but made no other answer.

Cloth rustled nearby, and he realized that Rodney had sat down next to him. What the hell was going on here?

"I'm sorry," Rodney said eventually. He still sounded uncertainscared, almost. "About what happened last week . . ."

John couldn't stay quiet anymore. "You're sorry?" he repeated. "I made an idiot out of myself, and _you're_ sorry?"

"No," Rodney said, a little more sharply. "You don't get it."

"I get it well enough," John said bitterly.

They sat in silence for a little while longer, and then something warm brushed lightly across John's cheekso lightly he might even have imagined it, but he turned his head towards it out of reflex.

There was a moment for which both men stared at Rodney's hand, which was still hovering a fraction of an inch away from John's cheek. Then its partner came up to join it, cupping his face lightly.

John wasted a moment or two in shock and confusion.

And then Rodney leaned over and kissed him. It was a light kiss, but somehow passionate nonetheless, and both men were breathing a little more heavily when they pulled apart.

John rested his forehead against Rodney's. "Okay," he conceded quietly, "you win. I'm hopelessly confused."

A faint smile flickered over Rodney's lips and then vanished. "You kissed me," he said simply, "and it confused the shit out of me. It never occurred to me that you might've meant it—I thought you were trying to screw with me somehow, that you'd found out I wanted you and thought it'd make a nice joke."

"That you—" John echoed, stunned.

Rodney nodded. "Yeah."

"I never even guessed." John laughed ruefully, brushing his thumb lightly along Rodney's cheekbone. "So what changed your mind?"

"I was really pissed at you for a few days," Rodney continued. "I was thinking about it last night—replaying the whole thing in my mind—and I could remember your face so clearly all of a sudden, the way you looked after you'd pulled away from me. And you looked so awful . . . I hadn't realized how badly I'd hurt you." He fell silent, watching John's face closely.

John stared back for a moment and then, lost for words, leaned in for another kiss to which Rodney responded hungrily.

Really, it was all that needed to be said.

THE END


End file.
